MUSI 3389 - Digital Music: MIDI Lab

Ambient music, orchestral reproductions, music for games, techno dance music, film scores, unearthly sound effects, electro-acoustic music, music publishing, pop, rock, synthesized sound, practicing jazz improvisation, etc, etc. What do they all have in common? They all use techniques of music production that can be explored in the MIDI lab. The possibilities of application are nearly endless. The techniques are learned here.

The MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) lab at the University of Texas at Dallas, under the direction of Kelly Durbin, offers students the opportunity to create their own professional sounding music for the project of their choice – whether it be music for a game they’ve written, a video that needs scoring, or any other music recording project. Students are introduced to midi recording and editing techniques, as well as basic digital audio techniques. Students also learn scoring/notation techniques for producing professional quality printed music. Using these various techniques, students are free to explore their own personal area of musical interest in a project-based environment.

From its small, “experimental” offering in the spring of 1997 (in a closet-sized office in the basement of Jonsson on a borrowed 386 with a borrowed midi keyboard and 1 sound module), the lab has grown steadily in size to accommodate the increasing student demand. The lab can now accommodate 22 students on individual stations, each with professional level software. Our current equipment includes: